Photo: © Starshot Design Agency

One Giant leap: Ben Atkins' Giant Tour 2004

From his desk job in Brighton to the Tour of Germany. It's quite a leap for Gran Fondo lover Ben Atkins, who is one of a very lucky group of journos riding the Giant Tour, a toned-down version of the pro event as a guest of Giant Bicycles. Over the course of the next seven days, Ben will live and breathe the life of a professional cyclist, so follow him (albeit with a touch of envy) as he embarks on the experience of a lifetime.

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Giant Tour 2004

Day 8 - Stage 6 - June 5: Schoneck - Kurort Oberwiesenthal, 80.4km

I dug really deep today
Photo ©: Starshot Design

If yesterday was bad, then today was hell! The weather as we woke up in Plauen, somewhere in the former East Germany was pretty rotten, and was getting steadily worse. So far in this tour, the weather has alternated between fine and raining every day, and every time it's rained, it's been worse than the previous time.

For some reason I decided not to wear my rain jacket today. The last two stages when I've started in it I've taken it off after about 20km and had to carry it, not bothering to put it back on when the rain set it. I was hoping that today would be similar to the previous wet days, so I left it in the bus. This was my first mistake of the day.

The stage was to be neutralised for the whole time that it was in the Czech Republic, but that didn't mean it was going to be easy; the parcours was hillier than anything we'd experienced so far apart from the Austrian Alps, so staying in touch with the main pack was going to be a challenge in itself.

My second mistake of the day was to stop for a comfort break. the rain was pouring down by the bucket load, then pouring back up again as a few hundred tyres spewed it into everyone's faces. I should have just done what some pros do in the rain and just let it go, adding more liquid to my already soaked kit, but that seems to take a certain kind of willpower and I didn't seem to be able to allow myself to do it. Jo and I had decided to ride together again today, so we both stopped together, and by the time we started off again we were pretty close to the back!

The next thirty or so kilometres took on a familiar pattern of Jo, who's legs have come back to him since Thursday pulling me along. We caught up with the back few riders and passed them without too much difficulty, giving them a chance to come with us that they couldn't take. We soon came to the back of the following cars, one of them containing Daniel, our photographer, and spent the next few minutes trying to pass them as we descended quickly towards the back of the main field.

We rejoined the main bunch, and found most of our team mates just in time for the long second category climb up to Marianska, and I was soon at the back of the bunch again. One of the defining characteristics of the stage, apart from the appalling weather was the state of the roads. The city roads were full of potholes and badly made repairs, but the surface of this road had been removed! They'd been over the top of it with one of those machines that prepared it for re-laying, but hadn't actually got around to putting the new surface on. The first few kilometres of the climb seemed like an uphill Paris-Roubaix!

The climb dragged on for over 10km, without ever getting really steep but just being tough enough with a brisk headwind to make my already pretty tired legs hurt. Luckily I'd looked at the course profile; I knew that just because we'd reached the climb, the road didn't stop rising, so after a short and gentle descent the road tipped up again to the Czech ski town of Bozi Dar and beyond to the German border.

After crossing the border into Germany, the cruelty of the stage really began to show itself. As the road headed downhill into the town of Oberwiesenthal, we could see the faster riders heading back up on the opposite side! They were going to make us ride down the hill, then ride back up again!

The descent into the village was also where I really began to feel the cold. I'd been soaked to the skin all day, but now I was descending at over 70kph and my heart rate was dropping below 90. I could feel my arms start to shiver so I began to shake them and my legs to get my pulse to rise which seemed to work. While I was doing this a German rider passed me wearing nothing but a Bianchi jersey; he gave me that look as if to suggest that I must be a bit soft to think it was cold!

At the bottom of the hill the course passed through the town before rising again; this is where I told Jo to leave me and meet me at the top, but he would have none of it. Once again we assumed our familiar positions: him on the front comfortably turning the pedals, me behind, staring intently at the thin strip of grey and pink rubber that was his rear tyre.

The climb itself wasn't too bad - on another day I'd probably fly up it - but the combination of the cold and the week's mileage meant that our pace was pretty pedestrian. The last few hundred metres was the real sting in the tail, the gradient suddenly reared up and it felt like I was climbing the Muur in Flanders, but the crowd was massive and loud and their cheers carried me over the line. I still had the energy to point to Jo, my gregario di lusso as I finished, hopefully the crowd knew what I meant as I wouldn't have made it without his help today.

We had a pretty long transfer to Leipzig this evening, but this is it, we've made it to Paris. We only have the flat 92.5km tomorrow and we've made it!

Photography

Images by Starshot Design Agency

• Roderick gets a rub down from Rudy
• Pretty in Pink. Our steeds await...
• A horrible horrible day!
• The Giant Media Team climbing in formation
• Jo and me, together again
• Gregario di Lusso, Jo gets me there again
• Holding on to Jo's wheel gets pretty tough
• Soaked to the skin, why did I take my jacket off?
• This is real suffering
• I dug really deep today
• Javier Sanchez doesn't have to ride any more today!
• How steep is that finishing straight?